The Last Minute
by Hickumu
Summary: Jeff has come a long way to rescue Ness and Paula, and now he's finally arrived. Now he has to get to know the two he's come so far for, and they have to get to know him. Jeff has his anxieties and his doubts, and the madness that is Threed only makes them worse. Ness has no doubts whatsoever, and it takes Paula to explain that, and get Jeff to forgive himself for making them wait.


_This story was inspired by Saturn Storm's "Game Over" Earthbound comic series, located at . Specifically, it was inspired by "Late", a hypothetical look at the fate of Ness, Paula, and Jeff if Jeff had taken too long to come to the rescue. _

_Really, when you think about it, and try to contemplate the distances that must have been involved, starvation, death, zombification, or some combination was definitely a risk._ _And, overall, I just found the comic wonderfully tragic. However, I can't muster up anything too tragic for this canon. So I just decided to address the issue of time and lack of food and the risk of starvation as it might have been addressed in canon, working in some of Jeff's initial thoughts and anxieties on finally meeting Ness and Paula. It's quite a happy story at the end, I assure you, and everyone comes out okay. _

* * *

"I'm Jeff. I came because you called me. I'm not very strong, really near-sighted, kind of shy, and I tend to be a little reckless. This is just the way I am. Regardless, I hope I can be friends with you guys, and help out on whatever you're doing…okay?"

They were words he must have rehearsed a hundred times over on the way here – it had taken him a long while to get across the ocean, longer than he'd ever thought, and the only other thing he'd had to occupy himself with besides his own thoughts had been a picnic lunch.

He'd gone over the moment of meeting a hundred times, too. Unfortunately, one factor he'd never let himself consider was his ship crashing through the ground and through the roof of this dark little room, wrecking itself in the process and necessitating Jeff hastily clambering out through a haze of foul smelling smoke.

Really, it was a miracle that no one had died. Until the smoke cleared, Jeff wasn't even entirely sure that he had gotten away without killing anyone.

But then it did, then he saw the two children he had crossed an entire continent to meet. And then he realized that the moment was at hand, and so launched into his practiced introduction.

By the time he finished, his already flagging courage had taken a ninety degree nosedive, and he trailed off for lack of any better way to finish. And he saw Ness and Paula, still staring up at him with identical stunned expressions on their faces.

Jeff tried his best to think of something to break this awkward silence, but all he could muster up was an eminently pathetic. "Um…hi."

Fortunately, that seemed to do the job. Ness, the boy, gave a little shake of his head as though he was just coming out of a daydream. When he looked up at Jeff again, a broad grin had spread across his face.

"It's great to meet you, Jeff. And we'd love to be friends!" He looked over at the girl, Paula, as though seeking confirmation, or perhaps just agreement. "Right, Paula?"

"That's right!" She agreed without hesitation, nodding at Ness and then at Jeff. "I knew you'd come and find us, Jeff, I just knew it! And it's wonderful to finally meet you!"

They seemed so enthusiastic, so pleased, that Jeff felt himself actually smile, and blush. "Well…" he stammered. "I guess that's settled, then. So…" Waving a hand to chase a little more of the smoke out of the hole in the wall, Jeff took a moment to look around at where he'd found himself.

He didn't have to look long. It was a hole in the ground, a natural cave by the look of it whose only unnatural features were crumpled up food wrappers and a very secure looking door set into one wall.

"What's going on?" he asked, even though he thought he could guess some of it. "Why did you call me, anyway?"

What he'd guessed turned out to be the long and the short of it. Paula and Ness had been jumped in their hotel room by some woman neither of them had recognized, together with…Ness and Paula insisted that she'd been accompanied by zombies. Jeff chose to attribute this to their being trapped down here in the dark for…how long had they been trapped down here?

This question was met with a shrug from Ness. Then the boy stared around at the littered floor. "Hm…I've gotten hungry a lot. Definitely more than a day."

"But it's hard to tell down here," finished Paula. She stared earnestly at Jeff, almost pleadingly. "Jeff, you've been outside. How long has it been, since I called you?"

It was a question Jeff had been dreading, if only because he knew very well how long it had been, and he'd known at the start that he'd need to hurry. "Um…that was about five days ago," he said. "Maybe six. It got dark all of a sudden."

"It's always dark here," said Ness. Then he laughed, sounding almost sheepish. "Hey, Paula, I guess you were right. If we hadn't been careful with the food, we probably wouldn't have made it."

"See, Ness? I can come up with good ideas, too." But Paula's smile didn't look entirely right. And then Jeff realized that this was because these two children were discussing their narrow escape from starvation, and he felt sick, and he found that he couldn't look at them anymore.

Fortunately, he had a cast iron excuse to turn away. Ness and Paula were locked down here, without a key. Fortunately, one of the very few things Jeff had brought with him from Snow Wood should be able to solve that problem quite nicely.

At least…if it had survived the crash.

The wreckage had mostly stopped smoking, enough that Jeff felt safe heaving himself back into the remains of the cockpit and rummaging around.

"Hey, Jeff! Do you have any food in there?"

Such a simple question. And yet, it made Jeff's heart sink. He had his back to Ness and Paula, so hopefully they couldn't tell. But, inwardly, he was kicking himself.

Stupid. He was so _stupid_. A locked door might have been the greatest of dangers facing them, here and now, but it was hardly the only one.

"No!" he called back, feeling the weight of the guilt in his stomach. The food had been a while ago, but it was more than they'd had, and so he might as well have still been stuffed. Ness and Paula were well back, waiting by the door. Hopefully, that meant they couldn't see the empty picnic basket sitting on the floor of the ship.

But what he'd gone back to the Skyrunner to find was just under the seat, miraculously undamaged by the crash. He pulled it out, and hurried to rejoin them. "But, I do have this!" he offered, holding up the Bad Key Machine. He hadn't had to ask if the door was locked. It had been obvious, under the circumstances.

"Great," said Ness. He was obviously curious about just what the machine could do to help their current predicament, as was Paula. But Jeff realized, up close, that all their energies were probably focused on getting out of this dark room, and getting something to eat.

Stupid. He was so stupid.

"I, I call it the 'Open Any Door Even if you Have a Slightly Bent Key Machine'," he said, unable to keep a nervous tremor out of his voice. He went to work setting it up, so he didn't have to look at them. Hopefully, they'd think he'd cleverly planned to bring the machine to their rescue, not that he'd just been too sentimental to throw away Maxwell's invention.

"But…we don't have _any_ keys," said Ness, bemused.

"That's okay. It's all the same to it."

At least…Jeff hoped it was.

But, thankfully, when Jeff brought the machine against the lock and pressed the button, it whirred to life just as it had at the lockers. With a blessed "click", the door lock gave way. When he gave a little push, the door swung open as easy as if it had been greased.

Ness and Paula's cheer of delight was his only warning to get out of the way, as the other two children barreled forward, out of the cave that had been their prison and into the shadowy cavern beyond. "Oh, man, finally!" Ness crowed, his voice echoing boisterously around the underground walls beyond the threshold.

"Thank you so much, Jeff! I knew we could count on you!" Even in the scant light of the cave, Jeff could see the smile on her face as she looked back over her shoulder at him. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and Jeff was so distracted that he didn't even notice that Ness had backtracked and was holding out a hand to him. The other boy finally lost patience and simply grabbed Jeff's hand to lead him along. "Let's go, before they come back!"

"R-Right," Jeff stammered, hurrying along as fast as he could. It wasn't easy, though. Ness was taller, and his legs were longer, and he moved like someone who ran a lot. Jeff had never run a lot, not even on the way here, and two people's lives had been at stake, then. He understood the need to hurry, though. After all, it wasn't as though Ness and Paula had locked themselves down there in the dark. Whoever had wouldn't be happy to know they were out, and it would probably be a good idea to be well away when they found out.

Stupid. He was so stupid, for not thinking of that earlier. But the only thing to do now was run along, as best as he could, following the yellow stripes of Ness' shirt and the pink of the back of Paula's dress that were the brightest things in the world right now.

Jeff hadn't realized it when he'd crashed, just how deep he'd fallen beneath the earth. They ran for a while, and then trudged when they all ran out of breath, up a flight of stairs, along another hallway, another flight of stairs, a final hallway, and then three steps brought them out under the starry sky, through a little hole tucked away behind a gravestone.

Jeff was panting for breath, in between taking in great, gulping breaths of fresh air that tasted so impossibly sweet after the musty, choking air of the cave. The muscles in his legs were screaming from the exertion.

To his surprise, when he looked around for Ness and Paula, to see how far he'd have to go to catch up to them since pausing to catch his breath, he saw them just a few feet away, apparently just as tired as he was. He'd though he'd heard them panting and stumbling, after a while, just like he'd been. He'd dismissed it as a hallucination, though, rationalizing that Ness and Paula were too tough to be tired out by even that long trip.

It turned out, he'd been a bit more alert than he'd thought. "Are you okay?" Jeff asked nervously, limping over to join the other two children properly.

"Yeah, I'm good." Ness opened one eye and grinned wryly up at Jeff. "I'm just _really_ hungry."

"We ran out of food a little while ago," Paula added, reaching down and offering Ness a hand up. "Come on, Ness! We should get back to the hotel. Maybe Mach Pizza will deliver!"

Ness leapt up like a cricket, one hand holding tight to Paula's and the other punching the air. "All right, pizza!" he cheered. But even Jeff could see that the other boy was drawing on his last dregs of energy. Under the light of the moon, the hollowness to his cheeks, the way his eyes were just a bit sunken, the sallow hue to his skin…that was noticeable even to Jeff. And, when he took another look at Paula, he saw that she was demonstrating much the same symptoms.

All the boys at Snow Wood knew basic wilderness survival skills. This had included Jeff, although he'd never before dreamed even in his worst nightmares that he'd have to put those skills to use under such dire circumstances. And he remembered, then and there, one of the pictures in the book – a picture of a boy and a girl, about his age, maybe Ness and Paula's age. They'd been naked, the better to show the hollowness of their bodies, the stark way the ribs stood out against flesh, the harsh, concave curve of the stomach, the spindly limbs that shouldn't have even been able to let them stand upright.

But it was the eyes of those two children in the picture, that had bothered him the most. Those had been the eyes of two people with no hope, no humanity. Just a desperate need to feed. Ness and Paula didn't have that look in their eyes, they didn't even look that bad, really, just a bit ill and underfed. Jeff suddenly realized, however, that they might have, if he'd been a bit slower, if they hadn't had as much food stuffed into Ness' bag when he'd been captured. He pictured the friendliness and cheer in their eyes replaced by that inhuman hunger, and had to swallow back a lump in his throat as he was seized by a sudden urge to cry.

Stupid. He was so stupid. And if they'd been a bit less prepared, his stupidity might have cost them both their lives. He hadn't thought. He hadn't planned. He hadn't even brought them anything to eat. It seemed almost as though it must have been a mistake that Paula had contacted him at all. It seemed miraculous that they didn't hate him, for taking so long, for making them suffer like that.

Pizza was the least they were owed.

And yet, as they set off across the graveyard, towards the lights of Threed, Jeff knew that he couldn't buy them pizza, not unless pizza was far, far cheaper here than it was back in Winters. He had two dollars to his name. He'd had three, of course, but one had gone to procuring the monkey that was, he hoped, even now scampering happily all through the landscape with its monkey wife. Two dollars wouldn't even buy him a sandwich, let alone a pizza big enough to feed two starving kids.

Almost in reply, Jeff felt his stomach rumble. He pressed a hand against it, willing the feeling away. Three starving kids. The picnic lunch seemed forever ago. It had been a very, very long trip.

Still, maybe he could do something. He could sell his coat – it was almost oppressively warm, here, even at night – and maybe his stun gun. The hat, even, the ruler and the protractor, if that would be enough. Jeff hoped with all his heart that it would be enough. The least he could do for having kept them waiting for so long was feed them, ease the hunger he'd helped cause.

Jeff was so lost in his own grim thoughts that the first realization he had that he was being attacked was the icy shiver down his spine. And even then, he didn't properly understand what it meant, until something just above and behind his head hit him hard enough to make him stumble forward. "H-Hey!"

He whirled around, pulling his stun gun from his pocket in one move. What he saw behind him nearly made him drop it all over again in surprise.

"It's a ghost!"

The next thing he knew, Ness was racing past him, bat raised. "W-Wait, Ness, it's a ghost, you can't…!"

It turned out that Ness could, in an act of defiance against physics that Jeff would forever wonder about. The graveyard rang with a resounding "crack", as though he'd just struck a tangible being. The sound made Jeff feel better, a little more bolstered. Wanting to help, he raised his gun…

…and was hit upside the head again, making him stumble, making his shot go off course badly enough that it missed hitting Ness by inches. Jeff whirled again, gun raised, searching the graveyard for the other foe.

"Jeff, you're possessed!" Paula called to him from behind. "It's going to keep doing that! Just relax – Ness and I can take this guy!"

Turning back, Jeff saw that they could. Ness was industriously beating a ghost all the way back to undeath and Paula, as he watched, shot a spray of fire from her fingertips. Like a dancer responding to his cue, Ness leapt aside, leaving only the ghost to be engulfed in flames. Paula held up a hand for a high five, which Ness returned with almost unfair casualness as he came to look Jeff over.

"Aw, great," he said, making a face. "Guess we're off to the hospital." A second later, Jeff saw it – a miniature version of the ghost they'd just stopped, zooming into his field of vision and attempting to hit Ness. Ness managed to dodge, sticking his tongue out at the ghost as it continued its orbit around Jeff's head.

It was then that Paula's earlier call fully sank in. "P-Possessed?" Jeff stammered. "I-I'm possessed?!" He beat frantically at his clothes and head, seeking to swat the little monster away. "Quit it! Get off of me! G-Go away!" The ghost only laughed at him, zooming right through his hands as he attempted to beat at it. It was the most annoying sound in the world.

"Jeff, it's okay." Paula reached out to catch one of his hands before he could do himself as much damage as the ghost had been trying to. "It's fine! There's a healer at the hospital. We can just go there to get it exorcised."

"Yeah. It's on the way," Ness said, looking around so as to orient himself against the landscape. "Heck, maybe we can even order there. Even zombies wouldn't attack a hospital, right?"

Jeff saw absolutely no reason why zombies wouldn't attack a hospital. Paula, however, seemed to see absolutely no problem with this. And even Jeff had to admit that his fear of zombies was miniscule compared to his fear of how he was going to cover a hospital bill and pizza.

The ghost continued to harass him as they walked on together. Sometimes it gave Jeff a flick to the ear or a smack upside the head, sometimes it shrieked right in his ear and made him stumble, sometimes it just chattered at him in a language that Jeff couldn't understand but felt fairly sure probably wasn't at all polite.

Jeff could see buildings and signs of life off in the distance, past the fence. They were still attacked by far, far too many ghosts as they hurried towards it, or hurried as much as they were able. Ghosts, flies, dripping, ugly, stinking things in trash cans, honest to god _zombies_…Jeff was so tired that he actually collapsed to his hands and knees when they finally cleared the gate, which resulted in Ness having to step between him and a demonically possessed marionette.

Threed was a town gone mad. Jeff had thought the animals back at Winters were vicious, but people were actually cowering and fleeing in the streets from zombies, dolls, and giant insects. Ness and Paula set to work clearing a path through with grim determination and something like resignation. They really, truly seemed used to this, so much so that some of the townspeople called out relieved thanks to them by name when the danger passed.

They were all three starving, and tired, but when they finally reached the hospital, Paula was helping Jeff walk. His head was ringing from the ghost's torments, so much so that he could barely tell which way was up, to say nothing of being covered in scratches and bruises from all the enemies in their way.

He saw Ness and Paula both breathe a sigh of relief as the hospital doors slid shut behind them, and so Jeff let himself believe they were safe here. As he accepted that, though, it was like opening a valve.

"What's going on with this town?!" he demanded in a shaking voice. "There's zombies, and dolls moving all by themselves, and what's happened with those _bugs_…" The ghost chose this opportunity to drift in front of his vision again, making a rude face. This proved one piece of madness too much. It had been a very long few days, starting late at night and culminating here, in a hospital with two kids who were far out of his league and a rude ghost.

Jeff burst into tears. He didn't know how Ness and Paula had managed on their own, but he felt like he couldn't take another step. He had no idea how he could be the slightest help to them. He couldn't even walk across a cemetery without being possessed, he couldn't even buy food for them.

Some friend he was. He wouldn't blame them if they put him on a boat back to Winters right now.

They didn't, of course. Paula checked him in and walked him down the hall and into a pristine examination room. They left Ness in the lobby, making a phone call.

The doctor looked as tired as Jeff felt, but he'd clearly seen a lot of cases similar to the boy's. With practiced hands, he produced the biggest syringe Jeff had ever seen. Even Paula swallowed nervously at the sight of it, which was the biggest ego boost Jeff had gotten in hours. He'd never been bothered much by needles.

It turned out to not even be for him. Instead, the doctor sucked up the protesting, squealing ghost like so much snot, and tossed the syringe in a box filled with several others. He even bandaged up some of Jeff's more painful cuts, and gave him a lollipop.

He tried to give it to Paula, but she waved it away with a smile. "You've earned it," she said, kindly, and so for lack of anything else to do Jeff sucked on it dolefully. At the least, it took some of the edge off his hunger. And, at the least, there was no little monster buzzing around his head as they stepped outside.

"Thank you, Paula," he mumbled around his candy. "I'll pay for this. You and Ness don't have to worry about it."

"But, Jeff, we're not worried about it at all." Paula looked over at Jeff, giving him a lopsided sort of smile. "Ness has probably already paid your hospital fee."

"W-What?!"

"If I know Ness, though, he probably hasn't ordered yet. I know we should have asked you what you wanted before we got here, but it was a little busy." She actually looked apologetic at him. It was like Tony "only" being able to offer cookies to see him off all over again. Jeff wanted to scream.

"But, you didn't have to do that!" he burst out. "I mean, I…you've both done so much for me already! And I haven't done anything! I'm supposed to rescue you!"

"Jeff, you did rescue us. And we're both very grateful."

"All I did was unlock a door! Anyone could have done that!"

"But no one else did, Jeff." She reached out and took his hands, running a thumb over his knuckles. They were aching with how tightly he'd been holding the stun gun. The smile on her face was enough to stop Jeff's upset tirade mid stammer. "I called out to you, and you came," Paula continued. "No one else did. And I know it must have been a really long way for you. But you came, for us, just because we needed you. You proved yourself a real friend, Jeff, and that's what we need on this journey."

She seemed to utterly believe every word she was saying. Jeff was usually on high alert for some sort of deception, trick, or joke at his expense. But no matter how intently he stared at her, how he searched her face for any sign of falsehood, he couldn't find it. It was enough to make him want to burst into tears again, albeit for completely different reasons.

Paula saw it, and he saw that she felt sorry for him, which was almost worse than scorn. But she also drew him a little against the wall, so they weren't having this talk for all to hear right here out in the hallway, and lowered her voice so that she almost sounded like someone sharing a shameful secret. If Jeff had been in a more fit state, he might have been touched to know that she was confiding in him.

"Jeff…sometimes I've felt just like you, on this journey. Because Ness…he's so powerful. He was strong when I met him, and he's only gotten stronger. I think, if he really had to…he could make this journey all alone."

Jeff said nothing. He certainly couldn't disagree – that was certainly the impression he'd gotten out of Ness, even in his scant three hours of knowing him. But Paula clearly wasn't done, and she was clearly building up to something important – a teacher wrapping up the lesson before the bell rang, addressing a student who never wanted class to end.

"But he's a long way from home. And he's facing something huge, and terrifying. Something that could destroy all of us. The entire world is going crazy thanks to Giygas' influence. Even people on the street are suddenly attacking us. That's a lot to face, for one boy."

It sounded impossible to face. Jeff hadn't thought he could admire Ness anymore, but his heart swelled with it until he thought it might burst in his chest.

"But everything's better with friends, right?" She offered him a tiny, bright smile. "We might not be as strong as Ness, but…we can help him. Even if it's just by being his friend. With a good friend by your side, you can take on the world."

Jeff could understand that. For him, it had been more of a case of using Tony to keep the world at bay…but he imagined that was probably what it was like, for someone like Ness.

So he nodded – slowly, hesitantly, but he agreed. Paula, for her part, looked delighted, and pulled him into a hug to show it.

It was a nice, safe, sensible and simply moment, and Jeff didn't even mind when Ness broke it up by poking his head around the corner to call out a request for their pizza preferences.

Paula wanted sausage and peppers. Ness wanted pepperoni. Jeff, who had never actually had cause to eat a pizza before, shrugged, before finally stammering out that cheese and mushrooms sounded good. When it turned out that the only way to accommodate all of their preferences was a large, Ness looked delighted, so much so that Jeff's protests about the cost died without ever reaching his tongue.

He never voiced them again. Ness, he later learned, had a very generous father and therefore a lot of money. Ness liked to use that money for other people, and especially for his friends. He was the reason they were on this trip, after all, and so it was only fair that he should pay for it. That was Ness' logic, apparently instilled in him by his mother, and Jeff saw that there would be no arguing with it.

Ness wanted to take care of them. He wanted to look after them, and keep them safe. The feeling of being looked after was one that Jeff still wasn't used to, and maybe never would be. But here, far from home, he found that he liked it too much to try and stop it.

Mach Pizza, in defiance of all logic, turned out to be the slowest pizza delivery company in all existence. When it finally arrived, Ness shoved a truly staggering amount of money into the delivery man's hand, snatched the box away, and slammed it down on the little table they'd commandeered with the air of a conquering general out of one of Jeff's history books.

No one spoke, after that. They were all too busy eating. Jeff had never eaten with anyone else before – sure, he'd eaten at the same table, but they'd been the long trestle tables or overlarge round tables in the Snow Wood cafeteria. But this was the first time he'd ever felt like he was sharing food and space and time with other people, aware of them as much as he was his own thoughts. Even if they didn't talk much, there was still the indefinable sense of being, well…together.

If nothing else, he was their friend now. The way they looked at him, smiled at him, asked him how the pizza was like they were really worried about it…before tonight, there was only one person Jeff had ever trusted in such sentiments from, but no matter how hard he looked he couldn't find any sign of falsehood on their faces.

And so that resolved Jeff. It was a feeling just like the one that had first driven him out of bed, so far away and back at school. It was the feeling of being needed, that he'd never known before. He knew then, as they sat together in a corner in the hospital, stuffing their faces in preparation for returning outside to face the night and all its terrors, that they considered him a friend. For all their power and their surety and their confidence, they wanted to be his friend, and they wanted him here.

Jeff was still afraid. But he knew they were, too. And maybe, as long as they were together, that wouldn't matter quite so much.

Somehow, that made the entire trip here, and the promise of the long and dangerous journey to come, completely and utterly worth it.

* * *

_And then Jeff proceeded to bottle rocket the unholy hell out of the Boogie Tent, earning Ness and Paula's respect as well as their admiration. Because, let's face it, Jeff is a badass, no matter what he thinks. _


End file.
